The back door into Littleton

We often forget that saying “yes” to one thing means saying “no” to
another. So, too, as the depth and pain of the human tragedy in
Littleton, Colo., becomes our own, we learn that the reverse is
equally true: saying “no” to one set of values opens the door to
another.

The truth is that the cowardly young killers of Littleton were only
expressing their particular values. And values, as everyone knows by
now, are for each individual to discover, cultivate, and
illuminate his or her life.

The religion of tolerance, which now tolerates anything except the
truth about the physical and moral universe, preaches this quite openly.
Large numbers of American adults will today look you in the eye and tell
you with a straight face that “it’s wrong for you to force your values
on anyone else.” Should you persist in efforts to apply your values to
anyone else, they can become downright hostile in the way they
“tolerate” you.

Thus we may assume that teachers, school administrators, fellow
students and many parents saw nothing wrong with Littleton’s outcasts
walking the halls, saluting Hitler, and otherwise expressing their
hatred and contempt of other values: athletics, racial diversity, and —
heaven forbid — Christians. At any rate, they tolerated it.

Foremost, but by no means alone in erecting altars to the state
religion of tolerance in America has been the militant homosexual
community. For centuries men have been exploiting God for gain (witness
the corrupt priests in ancient Israel), so those who began exploiting
tolerance for their own gain (popular acceptance of a deviant lifestyle)
were only following an old, established tradition. I sometimes wonder if
they are not surprised at their own success?

Like any religion that demands little of its followers, tolerance
soon grew into a recognized, then popular faith. It is now a state
religion, subscribed to by those in authority in our nation,
endorsed by the courts, embraced by laws demanding its worship, and
practiced openly by the wealthy and influential in our society.

The only remaining theological question the new faith struggles with
is, What, exactly, are we to tolerate?

Here, Littleton’s cowardly killers seem to have been pushing the
theological envelope. Their values told them to despise athletes,
minorities, and — especially on confession of faith —
Christians. Seventeen-year-old Cassie Bernell’s murderer didn’t even
give her the courtesy of responding to his “why?” when she confessed to
him that she believed in God. He shot her dead before she could answer
his question.

The political left in America is now seething in rage over the fact
that Littleton’s murderers used firearms to express their values. “Why,
if it weren’t for these evil objects,” they insist with straight faces
(they rarely look you in the eye), “it wouldn’t have mattered what those
wretched little misfits believed. They wouldn’t have been able to do
anything about it.”

American leftists inhabit a unique world, you see. Things — created
objects — have mental volition and the ability to choose between good
and evil. People, the result of some grand cosmic
accident and unaccountable to any Creator, accidentally came out “good”
and would remain so were it not for the influence of “evil” things.

Thus, our society tolerates popular music that speaks of rape and
dismemberment as entertainment, a movie industry so desensitized to its
own violence and sexual deviancy that its creators are proud of their
output, video serial-killer training programs masquerading as “games,”
and political leadership that uses the Constitution for toilet paper
while it considers bribery, extortion, and political character
assassination as little more than the normal prerogatives of power.

Thus the powerful can lie under oath, deface the courts, and blow
away their enemies in Yugoslavia and other “trouble spots” at will.
Their enemies are whomever they decree, but especially those who
disagree with their “vision” for the world. Somehow, when one reaches a
certain priestly level in the state religion of tolerance, he or she
becomes a god and the rules and rituals of the faithful no longer seem
to apply.

How, then, did Littleton’s young murderers draw such drastically
wrong conclusions when they reasoned that laws are for the weak and
foolish, and that might makes right, and that anyone who opposed their
values deserved to die?

Did their parents teach them that these values were wrong? Did an
army of state-supported educators explain why these values were wrong?
Did the priests and priestesses of psychological counseling enlighten
them? Or were they left alone, to spiral downward into the murky
quagmire of relativism, self-esteem, the occult, and Nazi hero-worship?

In 1892 the United States Supreme Court ruled that America was a
Christian nation. They did not mean that Christianity was the state
religion, but that its customs and values were the customs and values of
the nation. Much earlier in history, Jesus, who seemed to have a lot to
say about this new faith, told his disciples that there were only two
requirements man owed to his Creator: Love God with all your heart,
soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. The rest, he said,
would sort itself out.

In public life, of which schools play a major part, the high priests
of tolerance now deem these values unacceptable. Far better, they have
concluded, to keep the schools “values neutral.”
Let the killers from Littleton develop their own sense of right and
wrong. Having so ruled, they slammed the door of public education shut
in God’s face; “religious” values such as “love
your neighbor” simply were not allowed. In closing the door labeled
“God” they have opened another door.

The world is not now — nor indeed has it ever — been the way that
modern men and women want to believe that it is. Values, like the human
beings they shape, are not all created equal. Some lead to life; others
lead to death.

Littleton’s cowardly killers are growing now among the next
generation of Americans. Not all will commit atrocities and destroy
themselves while in school. Some will grow to control the
government. Others, the weapons of war. The universities, the cloning
laboratories, the hospitals and the next generation of corporate
executives will draw from their ranks.

So many people have told me, “they looked just like ordinary kids.”
The fact is, they were. The terrifying truth for America is that
Littleton’s young murderers are not confined to that bleeding
city, or to the state of Colorado. Our spiritual nature abhors a vacuum.
God created us to worship something. He left open a door we call free
will to determine what that will be. Closing the door
to the Christian God has opened the door to another. Why are we
surprised when we see him walking in through our open door?